What Got Me Here

 

When I read Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild several years ago, it affected me as no other piece of writing had done before or since. There was one paragraph in particular that really struck me a chapter or two before the end of the book:

“What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I’d done something I shouldn’t have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I’d done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn’t do anything differently than I had done? What if I’d actually wanted to fuck everyone one of those men? What if heroin taught me something? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn’t have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?”

Except for the reference to heroin, everything in that paragraph struck against my mind the way a clapper does on a bell, causing my mind to reverberate for days, the vibrations echoing through my life in a way that changed the way I saw everything, felt about everything both past and present.

I had sex with a lot of men between the ages of 20 and 40. How many men? How much sex, well it depends upon whether you accept Bill Clinton’s definition (“I did not have sexual relations with that woman…Ms. Lewinsky”) or the definition of Bill Clinton’s detractors.  Until the late 90’s my definition of “having sex” was pretty much on par with President Clinton, but after his impeachment I found it necessary to revise my list of men I’d “had sex with” upwards by 3 or 4 names. And it wasn’t just the sex, it was the emotional attachments, the stalking behavior; the men, often friends, that I wanted to sleep with but couldn’t who sometimes got hurt because of my impulsive behavior. I am genuinely sorry for pain that I caused. Yet I’m still glad for the experiences, because they all taught me something. They made me into the person that has negotiated this wonderful yet turbulent, nearly 30 year marriage to my soul mate.